With this Peggy pulled the ring off her finger and, tossing it lightly toward the lad, whispered,—
"Catch! and keep it if you can! It is my birthday gift."
"I take the dare and I take the gift, and I will yet take something else. So there, Peggy!"
But ere he had finished she had vanished up the stairway and the ball was over.
CHAPTER XXI
A ROOTED SORROW
Before the last guest had taken his departure from Romney the red sun came bobbing up across the river and shot his rays in at the window.
There is a sarcastic common-sense about the morning sun on such occasions. "Was it all worth while?" he seems to ask. "Consider the labor of preparation, the rushing about of the servants, the hours that my lady spent before her mirror with patch and powder-puff, the effort my fine gentleman expended upon his ruffles and falling bands. Then the occasion itself, the weary feet that trod the measure long after the toilsome pleasure had ceased to please, the lips that murmured sentiment knowing it was nonsense, the eyes that reversed the old moral maxim and strove to beam and not to see—Reflect upon all these and then sum up the aftermath,—the disordered rooms, the guttering candles, the faded flowers, the regretted vows, the heavy eyelids, the aching heads. Now, was it all worth while?"